Pyrometallurgy of Niobium, Tantalum and Vanadium—Development Work at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

India has fairly substantial resources of vanadium and only small reserves of niobium and tantalum. Vanadium occurs in the vast deposits of titaniferrous magnetite located in Bihar Orissa and Karnataka. It is also occurring as a minor constituent in most of the bauxite deposits in the country. Niobium and tantalum occurs as niobium-tantalite in pegmatite deposits in mica mining belts of Bihar and Rajasthan. This mineral is also found in the cassiterite deposits of Baster in Madhya Pradesh. This paper presents an overview of the development work carried out at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre on the process metallurgy of these three Group V metals starting from their indigenous resources. The coverage includes separation of pure individual elements, preparation of pure intermediates, techniques of reduction to metal and final purification.